drunken promises and secret rhymes
by rainy-october-972
Summary: Handsome is probably the exact right word for it. Handsome. Worth a ransom. ... His face would be even more beautiful in the glory of superiority, of triumph over adversaries. - Fezzik and Inigo were both fairly drunk when they met. Which explained a lot.


Fezzik and Inigo were both fairly drunk when they met. Which explained a lot.

Of course, Inigo was drunk most of the time, so that can't be used as much of an excuse in his case. In fact, you might say that he was on his best drunk behavior that night, as it were – after five years of focused alcoholism, any man's body is forced to adjust its functions to this new normality. But Fezzik was a completely different story. The night he was found by Vizzini and taken back to this discreet hovel also happened to be the first time he discovered the positive effects of ale; in fact, when the small man first set his greedy eyes upon him, he was at the end of his ninth tankard. And it showed. Inigo didn't mind.

No, Inigo didn't mind in the slightest.

"Inigo," he'd awoken to find the Sicilian shouting in his ear, in the tone he usually reserved for after a particularly crafty murder, "get up, you inebriated Spaniard! I've found the solution to our problems!"

_What problems, _Inigo thought. _Seems to me everything in the world is just fine. Fine with wine. What problem could there be? _He managed to pull himself out of his stupor and up off the stoop, to see exactly what his boss was going on about this time.

He stood up, only to fall back down again in surprise. For right behind the slightly blurry figure of the Sicilian, there was an even greater figure, a figure so great that he couldn't think what on earth it would be, until- "Oh! Who under heaven is this? He must be one of those famously gargantuan Turks!" Inigo didn't quite intend to say this last part out loud, but it was of no matter. Vizzini grinned and clapped him on the back.

"A Turk indeed, and not just a gargantuan one, no. This –" he gestured toward the mass, who so far had shown no signs of life save his heavy breathing – "_this_ is a great Turkish fighting brute! In fact, the strongest in all the known lands! What do you think of that!"

Inigo thought about this for a moment, allowing his gaze to fully take in the stranger. He was large, certainly, and Inigo could imagine his power through tracing the lines of clearly defined muscle in his forearms and even his neck. And yet, he thought, the man was most certainly drunk. Draped against the doorframe, slumped forward; Inigo could almost see the alcohol wafting up through his pores.

_Good, then. I do appreciate a man who appreciates his drink._

Inigo grinned and pushed himself forward, holding out his slender hand after bowing slightly to the huge man (and quickly returning to a straightbacked stance when his head began to vibrate). "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. It is my pleasure to meet such a –" he paused, searching for an appropriate word; he was not well-versed in strength-fighting terms, so fell back on dueling – "master."

"Faster," the man grunted. Definitely drunk.

"Pardon me?"

The Sicilian sighed and slapped the man. This seemed to make him realize where he was, or at least that two people were commanding his attention; he shook his head a little and met Inigo's gaze dazedly. "He's rhyming again. That's the most insufferable part, this love of rhyme. That will have to be dealt with. Tell him your name, fool, he wants your name! Don't you have one?" he barked.

"Fezzik." The giant's eyes were almost entirely black. He grasped the hand in front of him and shook it loosely.

Inigo bowed (and whipped his head up hastily) once more. "An honor, Fezzik. It is." He was impressed at his words – they barely slurred.

"All right, enough of this pleasantness," Vizzini sneered. "We must get to work at once! With my brains, and your skill, and this brute's strength, we will most certainly be world-renowned criminals within months! Failure with this combination is inconceivable to such a calculating mind as myself! Get inside, both of you, and shut the damned door!"

He hurried off, leaving Fezzik and Inigo standing motionless in the doorway.

"I'm sorry about him," Inigo said. "He's a horrid man."

"Not a fan." The giant smiled, then tensed up, realizing what he'd just done. Probably wondering whether Inigo was going to yell at him for the rhyme.

"Catch me if you can."

Fezzik stared at Inigo. The Spaniard smiled. "Two can play at that game, no?"

Fezzik grinned, a bit aloof, and Inigo could see suffering…trouble….well, _something_, anyway, behind those black eyes. Or maybe that was just the brandy talking.

"Broil?"

"Foil."

"Spoil."

"Royal."

"Shut the hell up and shut the door!" came the Sicilian's sharp yell from the other room. "I dislike this rhyming already and you both would do well to forget it unless you want to be left behind!"

Fezzik's eyes grew wide. "No- no-, sorry, sir." He leaped to shut the door, cracking his head on the ceiling. Inigo winced, but Fezzik barely seemed to notice.

"After you," Inigo said, leaving out the bow this time, and followed Fezzik into the warm interior of the shack.

Neither one of them did a very good job at following Vizzini's words in the time that followed. He was, as Inigo had long since discovered and Fezzik was quickly beginning to learn even in his dazed state, an expert at talking, and given enough time and barely believable attention, could drone on happily for quite long periods of time. It was the thing he enjoyed doing second best to murder. On this particular evening, the Sicilian managed to talk for approximately two hours and seventeen minutes about stratagems and clients and distant political struggles that might create countless opportunities and so on and so forth, while his two companions were otherwise occupied.

Fezzik almost fell asleep within five minutes of sitting down at the small wooden table. The _almost _was his greatest bit of luck so far that evening, for if he had actually dozed off, Vizzini would almost certainly have done something horrible, the least terrifying something being flying into a temper, and the most terrifying being casting Fezzik back out on the streets – possibly with a knife in his chest. He managed to avoid all of these somethings and stayed awake, not interested in the slightest in what the Sicilian was going on about but merely gazing off into space. Specifically, the space across from him, which was tall and thin and _handsome is probably the exact right word for it. Handsome. Worth a ransom._

Inigo, who was the space concerned, was also gazing across from himself in distracted interest. He wondered how exactly Vizzini had come across this huge fellow, and why he had brought him here. _Oh, that's right, _he remembered, _he's supposed to help with the murder and all. Strength. Well, he's certainly got that. Strength, right. A strong…figure. Impressive to look at. Be nice to have something as impressive as brandy to look at these days. Right, that's why he's here, Inigo._

Things continued in this vein until the end of that last seventeenth minute, at which point the Sicilian seemed to have talked himself into nearly as strong of a stupor, and somehow had come up against the conclusion that it was time for him to get a well-deserved rest. "It isn't easy being as intelligent and analytical as myself, oh no," he said loudly. "It takes an incredible amount of energy to be this highly logical, and an incredible amount of sleep, so don't either one of you dare to disturb my sleep – remember, I'm the reason you are alive and well!" With that caring remark, he retreated to his bed in the more comfortable corner of the shack, leaving Fezzik and Inigo still as stone, vaguely watching each other and trying to collect their thoughts.

"Where are you from?" Inigo asked after a moment. "How did you come across our Sicilian friend here?" gesturing clumsily behind him.

Fezzik shrugged. "Turkey," he grunted. "It was nice. Then a lot of places. Then here. My family left, then the circus, then I was alone. All alone…." He shuddered a bit and closed his eyes.

Inigo reached out his wandering arm, patted him on the cuff (the nearest part of him he could reach). "Don't worry, my friend. You aren't alone now. Vizzini might be horrid torrid sordid but he brings us together and he makes good things happen. I understand. Without him, we are nothing."

Fezzik thought about that. "Yes. You are right. He does make good things happen for me. I am very glad he found me, glad I found…this place…glad I found you. Yes. It is good."

"We will be good friends indeed, my friend," Inigo agreed enthusiastically. "With your strength and my sharp sword we will have many grand adventures. We will do many great things, you and I." He pounded his fist on the table.

"What kind of things?" Fezzik asked, leaning forward.

"All sorts. We will crush armies in our path, leaving them strewn and bleeding behind us. We will capture entire ships and sail them to the end of the world, to revenge. We will buy all the money in the world, and with that, we will buy good wine," Inigo said with the sincerity of a promise and the grin of a man deranged.

"Yes, we will. You and I," slurred the giant. And Inigo could see that he was not a creature of bloodlust, but he was a man who would do anything with a brave and fierce smile so long as he did not have to do it alone. _His face would be even more beautiful in the glory of superiority, of triumph over adversaries. _And Fezzik was thinking that this whole plan sounded better than anything that brutal Sicilian had said in the two hours and seventeen minutes he had droned on about such things, because of the way the Spaniard's passion cloaked every word with determination and made it seem not only possible but the only logical thing to do. And all of a sudden, or slowly, or by some unknowable pattern of movement and means, there was no table between the two men and in fact there was nothing between them at all, least of all the still air they had just been staring into.

Inigo's fingers were twisted into the giant's hair, and he tasted to Fezzik of desperation and strong brandy, who himself was flavored like deep honey ale, and there was nothing nothing nothing but this, no need to think of murder or revenge or the loss of worlds, or maybe that was just the thing to think of, yes so much pain and so much emptiness and of course wine could never be enough but this, maybe this was, he wanted everything and nothing at the same time and thank God above for this beautiful drunk stranger, who was both experiencing victory over and being conquered by this possibly crazy and definitely foolish but absolutely right Spaniard fencing champion who had never had as glorious a battle as at that moment, his fingers woven deep and his heart thudding and his tongue parrying faster than his precious six-fingered sword, meeting Fezzik's every blow with his own, marveling with the sureness with which the man moved, the firmness in his grip as he guided him away from the table, away from the dark corners of the room and up against the wall, both of them going deeper now, feeling more dangerous.

They both tasted the dust in the air around them as they surfaced briefly, gasping lungfuls of cold oxygen, still grasping at each other, burning from their breathing and the alcohol and the desire to, just once, not be alone in the world. But then the Spaniard's lips claimed the giant's once again, once again there was no world outside of the fire, everything else was cloaked in smoke, as it should be.

Neither of them was entirely sure how much time passed or _how _it passed, exactly. Eventually the air reclaimed the space between them and they found themselves on the floor next to each other, chests rising and falling heavily almost in unison but not quite. Fezzik was grinning at Inigo and the latter was clenching and unclenching his fists, more out of fascination with their movements than of passion or anger. After a few more moments, he spoke first.

"Friend."

"Contend," Fezzik said immediately.

"Transcend."

"Amend."

"Recommend."

"Depend."

"You're good."

"I know."

Inigo didn't remember anything about that night.

Fezzik remembered some of the fire, but mostly the rhymes.


End file.
